Fire hydrants are widespread throughout communities, cities, industrial facilities, etc. While seeming immutable and ever present, hydrants require significant upkeep and testing on a continuous basis. This consumes already tight budgetary resources for fire departments, as well as diverts man-hours to locating and maintaining the hydrants on, at least, a semi-annual basis.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) establishes standards for hydrant testing and maintenance. For instance, NFPA Standard 291 relates to flow testing and marking of fire hydrants. Marking of hydrants is typically accomplished by painting the hydrant cap or bonnet, or whatever term the local fire department associates with the uppermost part of the hydrant, a particular color in order to clearly identify the flow capabilities of each hydrant. NFPA Standard 291 lists the following colors: Class AAA—light blue—1500 Gallons Per Minute (GPM) or higher; Class A—green—1,000 to 1,499 GPM; Class B—Orange—500 to 999 GPM; Class C—red—less than 500 GPM.
Typically, at least twice each year, fire departments conduct flow tests on hydrants to test the hydrants' flow capabilities. Moreover, additional testing becomes necessary if water consuming structures or flow associated with the water flow system changes. For instance, addition of elevated water tanks, addition of more water lines, removal of same, or any other change that could increase or decrease the flow rates of the hydrants associated with that portion of the water flow system, necessitates testing the flow capabilities of the hydrants associated with the impacted portion of the system.
Moreover, hydrant flow also impacts the general public. For instance, flow ratings impact homeowners insurance via the Insurance Service Office (ISO) standard. The standard is used by fire departments throughout the United States of America to rate each fire department in the United States. Homeowners insurance is largely affected by the resources of the local fire department. The ISO standard rates fire departments on a class method with the best fire departments receiving an ISO Class I rating and the worst rating being an ISO Class 10. For example, a fire department with an ISO Class 10 rating, the worst rating, by improving its score to an ISO Class 6 rating, may reduce homeowner's insurance up to forty percent. In order to determine the rating and attempt to improve same, multiple steps must be met, including semi-annual testing as well as annual maintenance of the hydrants. These standards ensure that sound maintenance programs are in place while also ensuring that hydrants will work when a fire is present and water is needed.
Further, all structures have what is known as a “Needed Fire Flow” (NFF) amount. This is the amount of water required to put out a home or business, if it is on fire. For example, a typical 2,000 square foot home has a NFF of about 650-666 GPM. Marking hydrants allows for the fire crew responding to a fire emergency to identify the amount of water that a hydrant can produce simply by looking at the hydrant. For instance, a fire crew responding to a fire involving a 2,000 square foot home would know upon looking at a painted hydrant whether it produced sufficient GPM to quench the fire based on the color coding painted on the hydrant.
Marking fire hydrants to help locate them as well as to indicate their respective GPM rates is time-consuming and dangerous with respect to the fire department personnel testing and marking the hydrants. Most fire hydrants are located immediately beside roadways and streets in the fire district. Thus, hydrant marking typically employs at least two personnel. One to paint or mark the hydrant and one to watch for traffic. Painting each hydrant takes several minutes per hydrant. Additionally, the more a hydrant has been painted in the past, the more likely it is for the painter to need to remove previous paint layers in order to achieve good adhesion with the current paint. This increases the amount of time needed for maintaining the hydrant, as well as keeps the fire personnel in close proximity to the roadway and possible harm.
Further, the expense associated with marking, remarking and grading the hydrants quickly escalates as one must account for not only the time value of money for involving multiple fire personnel to paint a hydrant, the cost of fuel to arrive at same, and the supply expenses associated with painting the hydrants. These amounts are further compounded by large fire districts with a large number of hydrants.
Various prior attempts have been made to provide covers for fire hydrants. These include attempts such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,969 to Lyasko wherein the entirety of the fire hydrant is covered. U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,898 to Vis, meanwhile, discloses a protective device for fire hydrants shaped to receive an operating nut in order to prevent tampering via readily available pliers, wrenches and the like. The invention is intended to be retrofitted to existing fire hydrants via welding or brazing. U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,556 to Pereira, et al., discloses a cup shaped cover for a fire hydrant that includes an opening therethrough for rotatably receiving a special tool that opens and closes the fire hydrant valve while also allowing for escape of water and debris that may accumulate on top of the hydrant. U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0261002 to Sampson discloses a multi-purpose reflective collar for attaching to a hydrant for increasing visibility and indicating the hydrant's flow rate. Color coded reflective tape webs can be removably attached to the collar to accomplish these goals. The collar is made to be adjustable in order to fit hydrants of differing sizes, as may be found from one fire district to another. The collar is synched around an outer extremity of the hydrant while leaving the top of the hydrant uncovered. U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2009/0128355 to Urbin discloses a collar for visibly marking a fire hydrant including a ring-shaped body portion and light emitting means along with a photovoltaic device. However, these attempts leave much to be desired with respect to an efficient, functional, low cost, easily reproducible, and quickly deployed marking device that clearly indicates the flow associated with a hydrant as well as helps fire personnel visually locate the hydrant in times of need.
What is needed in the art are quickly and easily deployed, quickly and easily replaceable and/or interchangeble low cost devices and methods for marking a fire hydrant with its respective GPM rating as well as helping to make the hydrant more visible, and thereby more accessible, to fire personnel.